Stone age science nerds! Lets talk about Dr. Stone

he was forced to fight a pride of lions with his bare hands! He took them out so quick even Saitama would be impressed!

Dr. Stone is a new Manga series currently being published in weekly Shonen Jump, written by Eyeshield 21 author Riichiro Inagaki and artwork provided by South Korean artist Mujik Park, also known as Boichi. The setting is post apocalyptic in which all human life in the modern world has been petrified and turned to stone. After thousands of years, The world has effectively returned to the stone age and only Taiju and Senkuu manage to break free of their stone prisons, setting off on their quest to restore the world to its former glory.

Im really enjoying Dr. Stone so far. At first glance it’s your typical Shonen Manga. All the signs point to this being the case but there is something fundamentally different about Dr. Stone that draws me in. Not that being a Shonen is a bad thing.

It’s got your dim witted but ultra determined male lead, a best friend and rival, a love interest for the dim witted one and then the main antagonist. All that being said, even though these seem like the typical shonen arche types, each of the characters in Dr. Stone display characteristics slightly out of the norm and this is what is seriously attracting me to the series right now.

Our lead protagonist Taiju is completely aware of his limits and doesn’t try to act outside of what he knows he can do. This makes him seem much more confident in his own abilities as he doesn’t constantly dwell on his weaknesses. The best friend Senkuu seems to treat Taiju slightly with contempt, making fun of him often and calling him out on his stupidity. Through it all, it becomes obvious very quickly that Senkuu really cares for Taiju above all else.

Our female lead Yuzuriha hasn’t had much time to shine yet. Shes isn’t a bad character, we just haven’t had much opportunity to see her personality just yet, though there have been some interesting moments that show her resolve. What I do like about Taiju and Yuzuriha’s relationship, is that it seems as though she genuinely likes him, and would be ready to return his love when he chooses to confess. Which is not something you see too often in Shonen titles. (insert lead who loves someone that doesn’t love them back here.)

Tsukasa, the current antagonist of the series, IS A COMPLETE BADASS! Known as “The strongest high school primate”, he has insanely good fighting ability and whilst not quite as intelligent as Senkuu, he is incredibly smart. Due to some circumstances in the manga, he was forced to fight a pride of lions with his bare hands! He took them out so quick even Saitama would be impressed! I’ll admit that I have a bit of a man crush on him at the moment. His design is great and I love the direction his character is being developed in.

My only beef with the series currently is Taiju. I feel his character is a bit flat compared to the others. I appreciate that we have only had 13 chapters so there is more than enough time for this to change, but as it stands, I find him a slightly underwhelming and his constant vocalization of his heightened endurance becomes ironically tiresome.

Comparably, Yuzuriha doesn’t seem much better, but there is one scene that makes her stand above Taiju in my eyes. She is completely willing to sacrifice herself for someone she barely knows, because it directly affects the future of the world. This really sets the table for what she could possibly accomplish in later chapters. Right now its hard to see Taiju accomplishing anything substantial.

Overall Dr. Stone is proving to be a refreshing read in the Shonen category and I can easily recommend keeping an eye on this one to see what the future holds. If you have read this yourself I would love to hear your thoughts about it! Just leave a comment below.